Hamilton claims ‘document’ helped Rosberg catch up

The 2008 world champion, still 11 points behind championship leader Rosberg despite winning two of the three grands prix in 2014, revealed that when the German arrived in Bahrain, he was handed a “big document”.

A week earlier in Malaysia, Rosberg had been defeated by Hamilton by no less than 17 seconds, but in Bahrain the Mercedes duo diced wheel-to-wheel for the race win.

“Someone in the team did a huge study on my pace in Malaysia,” Hamilton told British newspapers, revealing that the document received by Rosberg detailed “all the places I was quick”.

“So I will do the same for the next round in China and hope I can capitalise,” he added.

“I am going to study hard for the next two weeks and give it a lot of thought and digest a lot.”

Hamilton finished just one second ahead of Rosberg in Bahrain, where the pair fought hard for victory despite team boss Paddy Lowe’s radio call that they should “bring both cars home”.

“It’s great they allowed us to fight and didn’t get in the way,” said Hamilton.

But he warned that “if every single race is like that from now on, I can’t always guarantee we’ll both come out happy.”